Senate Democrats Threaten Balanced-Budget Measure

By MICHAEL WINES,

Published: January 28, 1995

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27—
Hours after the balanced-budget movement rolled its constitutional amendment, juggernaut fashion, through the House, the Senate served notice today that it might not be so compliant.

At a news conference, Senate Democrats who had voted for a similar amendment in the past hinted broadly that they could change their minds unless the Senate's Republican majority agreed to produce a detailed budget-balancing plan as part of an amendment package.

They backed that up with a letter to the majority leader, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, urging that both parties draft legislation to erase the Federal deficit by 2002, the earliest an amendment would take effect.

Forty-one Democrats signed the letter -- the minimum number, perhaps coincidentally -- that would be needed if Democrats chose to filibuster the amendment. Many oppose the notion of an amendment but say they favor a specific plan to balance the budget.

"The Republicans have said they're going to increase defense spending, provide a tax cut, protect Social Security and reduce the deficit to zero by 2002," said the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota. "We think they owe it to the American people to explain how."

Mr. Daschle, one of four Democratic leaders at the news conference, denied that the letter was a filibuster threat. But he added that Democrats expected a full debate on the need for a deficit-reduction plan when the balanced-budget debate began next week. He said his own support for an amendment would be in doubt if a plan was not forthcoming.

Another Democrat who signed the letter, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, called the 41 signatures a signal to Republicans that Democrats could make trouble if their concerns were not addressed.

In truth, Mr. Daschle and the other Democrats have the Republicans in something of a box. Because the Senate's 53 Republicans need 60 votes to stop a filibuster and 67 votes to pass the amendment if all 100 senators vote, no balanced-budget amendment is going anywhere without Democratic help.

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have been reluctant to oppose the popular amendment movement outright; indeed, many Democrats in Congress, like Mr. Daschle, favor some form of the measure. But all say it is irresponsible to pass a balanced-budget amendment without giving the states a clear explanation of the cuts in Federal money and services that it would bring.

After Senate passage, 38 state legislatures would have to ratify the amendment before it would become part of the Constitution.

Republicans rejected efforts to append a budget-cutting explanation to the House version of the amendment, saying that any budget forecast purporting to cover seven years of economic growth and recession would itself be irresponsible.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed polite interest in the idea when the amendment was considered earlier this month, but also rejected it.

Mr. Dole, who will control the pace and content of the balanced-budget debate, was noncommittal when asked about the Democratic letter. "It's a nice letter," he said, adding that he had not had time to consider it.

In the House, Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said he planned to schedule a House vote in April 1996, close to the deadline for filing income-tax returns, on another constitutional amendment, which would prohibit tax increases without the approval of three-fifths of the total membership of both chambers of Congress.

Many tax increases can now be enacted by majority vote, although the House rules bar income-tax increases without the consent of three-fifths of all representatives voting.

Mr. Gingrich and other party leaders offered the vote to House freshmen to soothe their anger after a version of the balanced-budget amendment that included the three-fifths requirement failed to attract enough support to pass the House.

In other action, the House subcommittee that oversees military appropriations approved legislation today that allotted $3.2 billion in emergency spending for Pentagon operations in Haiti and elsewhere, as well as additional money for military pay.

The action drew immediate criticism from Democrats, who noted that only $1.4 billion of the new spending was offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. That means that the bill would add $1.8 billion to the Federal deficit, something Representative David Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, called "incredibly ludicrous" in the wake of the House's approval of a balanced-budget amendment.

Graph: "DOING THE MATH -- Voting On a Balanced Budget" Last year, the senate failed to approve the balanced budget amendment, voting 63 to 37 in favor, or four votes short of a two-thirds majority. Eleven senators, 7 of whom voted for the amendment and 4 who voted against, were not re-elected. This year, the 11 new senators, all Republicans, plan to vote for the amendment. It takes 34 senators to block a constitutional amendment. The outcome will turn on the votes of several Democrats who voted yes last yer but now say they are having second thoughts.